


Bring Back the Sun (Who Takes You Away)

by isuilde



Series: Scatter Like Flower Petals [5]
Category: K (Anime)
Genre: Grieving, Hurt/Comfort, Lost Small World references that might be inaccurate since I'm a bit behind, M/M, SaruMi Fest 2014, also this thing might be confusing, dealing with grief, this might be a bit confusing so I apologize in advance, those who died stay dead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-10
Updated: 2014-07-10
Packaged: 2018-02-08 07:23:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1931853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/isuilde/pseuds/isuilde
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Whichever Misaki it is in his dream, though, Saruhiko could never see his face. Could never touch him no matter how hard he reaches out. All that’s there for him is Misaki’s figure, sitting on the ground of a white-washed world made of movie reels showing their memories together, and an inexplicable smile stretching across his face.</p>
<p>“Are you,” the Misaki-in-his-dream always asks, without fail. “Happy?”</p>
<p>(Saruhiko, dealing with the grief after Misaki's disappearance. Set after So Scatter Like Flower Petals (As the Rain Comes))</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bring Back the Sun (Who Takes You Away)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [peppersnot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/peppersnot/gifts).



> Last year, around this time, I said that I was writing some sort of sequel to [this fic](http://archiveofourown.org/works/768695), mostly about Saruhiko dealing with his grief over losing Misaki, and Anna helping him through that. In order for this fic to make sense, you'd need to read the above mentioned fic first, sorry.
> 
> It took me almost a year to finish this, but it's finally finished. In lieu of celebrating Sarumi Fest 2014, have some angst. Also sorry that this turned out to be a monster--I really didn't mean for it to reach 7k++ /facepalms
> 
> Dedicated to [peppersnot](http://archiveofourown.org/users/peppersnot) and [kanami-yuuta](http://kanami-yuuta.tumblr.com) ; this work wouldn't be as good as the original one, but I hope you guys would still enjoy it even if just a little bit. :D

He wakes up, and Misaki isn’t there.

Saruhiko spends a solid ten minutes staring at the ceiling, waiting for the smell of fried eggs wafting over from the kitchen or for a well-aimed kick to his side, but all he gets is a deafening silence that unsettles him more than the coldness of the other side of his bed, so he slowly rouses and pushes himself up.

He’s late, he notices when he glances at the clock—seven thirty—and turns to the window he’d left open last night. It’s already bright outside, the faint sounds of cars honking down the street echoing in the stillness of the room.

There are  _teru teru bouzu_ still hanging upside down on the window.

Saruhiko wants to take out his sword and tears through them, but he ends up dragging himself up, reaching out to touch their little heads, fingers running through the soft-rough texture of dining tissues he’d balled up to create these—these abominable things, he wants to think, but really, they’re miracles.

Even so, his hand closes into a fist at last, and the  _teru teru bouzu_ in his hand is crushed.

** \------o0o----- **

Anna comes over in the evening, sometimes. She’d bring food with her, leave it at Saruhiko’s dinner table, and sit somewhere close with a book in hands, silently reading, and lets Saruhiko do whatever it is he’s doing without so much as a demand for a drink like a guest should.

After the fourth time she comes over, Saruhiko purposefully stays behind in SCEPTER 4 headquarter, only for Awashima to drops by his desk and informs him that Kushina Anna is waiting for him in the lobby.

“What do you want,” Saruhiko growls under his breath when he finally comes out to see the young girl. Anna just looks at him blankly, like her literally barging into his routine is something normal. “It’s late, get home before Kusanagi-san thinks we kidnapped you.”

“Izumo brought me here,” Anna says, because of course Kusanagi had. Saruhiko scowls.

“Go home,” he repeats, irritation building in the back of his throat, threatening to spit out hurtful words, except he can’t, because it’s Anna—Anna who is looking into his eyes directly, obviously prying into Saruhiko’s mind, and Saruhiko physically wrenches away, stepping back and breaking their eye contact, even though he knows it doesn’t make a difference to the girl.

Anna though, just nods and says, “Okay,” and turns to leave.

**\-----o0o-----**

Most nights, now, he doesn’t dream. Or maybe he does, but he doesn’t remember when he wakes up. Oddly, the dreamless nights leave him with a sense of emptiness when he wakes up, more acute than any other time, and Saruhiko hates that even more than the nights he wakes up from nightmares, drenched in sweat and panting and something in his chest squeezing painfully.

Sometimes, though, when he goes to sleep without thinking too much, when he leaves his work unfinished on the living room and stumbles into the bedroom to sleep instead, he dreams of Misaki.

The Misaki-in-his-dream varies—that’s why he’s aware that it’s a dream. Sometimes it’s Misaki, the way he was just days shy of his death, sometimes it’s Misaki who went to middle school with him, sometimes it’s Misaki who bound himself to HOMRA existence, but mostly it’s Misaki who took him by the hand and dragged him out of a meeting in Kyoto, with a grin so certain when he kissed the frown off Saruhiko’s face.

Whichever Misaki it is in his dream, though, Saruhiko could never see his face. Could never touch him no matter how hard he reaches out. All that’s there for him is Misaki’s figure, sitting on the ground of a white-washed world made of movie reels showing their memories together, and an inexplicable smile stretching across his face.

“Are you,” the Misaki-in-his-dream always asks, without fail. “Happy?”

** \-----o0o----- **

The first time it rains after Misaki’s disappearance, tiny drops that fall from the sky sparingly for a brief fifteen minutes, Saruhiko stumbles out of SCEPTER 4 headquarter and runs out to the alleyway—their alleyway—and waits.

He’ll come, he tells himself. He’ll come, the rain would bring him back, the way the sun took him away. He’ll come.

But no one comes. Even as he stands there, all drenched and uniforms sticking to his skin, and the sky slowly clears up, no one comes.

He laughs brokenly, sliding down the wall and buries his face in his hands.

**\-----o0o-----**

“She grants wishes,” Awashima says, a clipboard held in one hand and another bracing the edge of her desk. “At a cost.”

“Money?” Hidaka speaks up, because he’s an idiot. Saruhiko snorts, but doesn’t look up from the files on his screen, information on their newest Strain target neatly forming rows and rows of words. A male Strain, with the power of granting wishes at a cost equal to said wish, and an ability to control people. Troublesome.

Awashima just spares Hidaka a look. “Their most precious possession, depending on the request.”

“What’s she going to take from me, if my wish is just to finish the new game I’m playing?” Domyouji murmurs under his breath to Enomoto, somewhere behind Saruhiko.

“That’s stupid,” Saruhiko says out loud, and he could literally hear both his colleagues on his back stiffen. He isn’t referring to Domyouji’s wish though. “Who would offer their most precious possession for a wish when it’s not certain how it’s going to be granted anyway?” Awashima turns to stare at him for a long time, opens her mouth to say something, but Munakata’s voice cuts her short. “You’d be surprised at what people are willing to do to have their impossible wishes granted, Fushimi-kun.” There’s a small smile on the captain’s face. “Humans are frightening creatures.” 

** \-----o0o----- **

On one of the evenings where Saruhiko is too busy doing paperwork to pay attention to the now-frequent evening visits from Anna, the girl puts away her book and says, “I want to make tea.”

Saruhiko looks up from the papers, annoyed. “Suit yourself.”

She tinkers for a while in the kitchen, and returns with two cups of jasmine tea, sliding one of them silently towards Saruhiko. He purposefully ignores her gesture; not that it makes any difference to her, because Anna accepts everything as facts and the way they are.

She drinks her tea. He pours over the papers. It’s a long, long time before Anna finally rises to her feet, and says, “I’m sorry.”

Saruhiko’s brain halts. “What.”

“For keeping it a secret,” she continues, lets the ‘it’ stays undescribed, and Saruhiko gapes at her. “For being the only one other than Misaki who knew about it.”

“I’m not,”  _angry about it_ , Saruhiko wants to say, but the rest of it dies in his throat, and he wonders if he’s actually bitter about it. Anna nods, like she hears the rest of the sentence anyway, takes her book and turns to the door.

“Misaki,” she says as she opens the door, and Saruhiko flinches at the name. “Didn’t want to go.”

The door closes behind her back, leaving Saruhiko alone in the apartment, and the man just really, really hates it when Anna gets all cryptic with him.

** \-----o0o----- **

“Dumbass,” Misaki calls him, and Saruhiko scowls.

It’s the Misaki several days before his death, tonight, lounging on the edge of a memory reel instead of sitting sprawled on the white ground. The reel is playing the memory of the day Saruhiko left HOMRA, and Saruhiko watches his younger self in the reel burn the HOMRA tattoo for a moment before wrenching his eyes away and returns his attention back to Misaki. He still can’t see Misaki’s face, which was weird, because he knows this is a dream, and if so, he should be able to control what’s happening. But he still can’t see Misaki’s face.

God, he wants to see Misaki’s face.

“Staying out in the damn rain like that, you could catch a cold, you know.”

Saruhiko sneers. “What are you going to do about it?” he challenges, and feels sick at how bitter he sounds. “You’re not here to force me to do stuff anymore, are you? You’re not here. Not here anymore.”

Misaki barks a laugh, but his grin is bright even if Saruhiko can’t see his eyes.

“Dumbass,” he says, jumping down from the memory reel, then turns to Saruhiko, face obscured by the shadows of the reel. “You don’t need me to be there.”

“I do,” Saruhiko says, and fuck, he wishes he doesn’t sound so desperate.

“Saruhiko,” Misaki says, and Saruhiko knows the question is coming, he knows it, he knows it but—

“Are you happy?”

And everything blurs into white.

** \-----o0o----- **

_I’m coming to you now, Saruhiko._

That’s how the diary ends. Saruhiko reads it, over and over again, and thinks maybe he can move on now. Maybe. Because Misaki’d chosen him for the rest of his life, even if not choosing Saruhiko might mean he’d get to live longer.

Misaki’d chosen him. Really, wasn’t that what he’d always wanted, back in the day, when he fought against the memory of HOMRA and Mikoto?

And yet, a tiny part of himself wonders why he doesn’t get to choose, himself.

** \-----o0o----- **

He actually cooks breakfast, one morning. Might as well, he figures, considering Misaki’s gone to such length in teaching him how to fry eggs properly.

Except the kitchen still has traces of Misaki left—the black apron half hanging off the counter, the scorch marks left when Misaki tried to teach Saruhiko cook a simple meal, the way spices and appliances are lined up against the wall, the pineapple in the fridge, the unopened bottle of milk, notes of recipes tapped onto the kitchen walls haphazardly, ingredients and measurements scrawled in Misaki’s usual untidy handwriting. Saruhiko gets a pan on the stove, takes out an egg, and stands in front of the sizzling pan.

He doesn’t have the energy to do this, he realizes.

The pan still sizzles, smoke dangerously wafting up as it heats, but Saruhiko just slides down and crouches, lets the egg fall from his grasp and watches it shatter on the floor.

**\-----o0o-----**

Awashima eyes him critically, and then takes away the document he’s working on. Saruhiko glares up at her, clicking his tongue in his usual how-annoying manner, but Awashima just slides a mug of coffee towards him.

“Take a break,” she says. “Clean your station, and then go home.”

“I’m not done with that,” Saruhiko scowls, but is forced to look away when Awashima gives him a pointed look.

“Go home, Fushimi,” she repeats, then turns away and leaves, her heels a staccato rhythm against the pristine white floor of the empty headquarters.

_ \-----o0o----- _

What is home, anyway, Saruhiko thinks when he steps into the silence of his apartment. It’s dark, and Saruhiko nearly stumbles over the  _genkan_ before finding his way to the living room, not bothering to switch on the lights. He maneuvers himself swiftly to the couch, throwing himself there without bothering to take off his shoes or uniform, the way he often does when he gets home too late and too tired to even make it to the bedroom.

Sometimes he does it on purpose, though. Because he knows Misaki would come out of the room and Saruhiko would steal a kiss before he was dragged into the bedroom, chided for not taking off his shoes, and—

Except Misaki isn’t here.

What is home, anyway, Saruhiko thinks again, heavy eyes finally sliding close, and if they’re a little wet, no one could see him in the dark, anyway.

** \-----o0o----- **

“Since when are you a crybaby?” the middle-school Misaki mocks. Saruhiko throws his shoe (it’s weird, he’s still wearing shoes in his dream, that’s unusual) at him, and he dances out of the way, laughter echoing in the whitewashed space. He flits behind a movie reel, and for a second Saruhiko thinks he’s gone, thinks he’s left for good, and panic presses down on his whole body until he can’t breathe, until he could feel his pulse in his head—

“It isn’t like you,” Misaki’s voice comes from behind, a warm presence settling against Saruhiko’s back. Saruhiko swallows, feels the panic bleeds off his shoulders, but he doesn’t turn around. Instead he leans back, tries to feel the sturdy, steady, albeit short, back. His blood thrums with the familiarity, even more as the back of his head rests on the top of Misaki’s head.

“What do you know about me,” he counters hollowly.

“You’re a lot of things, idiot monkey,” Misaki says. “But you’re not one to go back on your promise.”

“You don’t know that, either,” he says. “You don’t know that, Misaki, you know nothing, you don’t know anything you—you’re not even  _here_ —“

“Saruhiko,” Misaki says, the name a hum in Saruhiko’s ears. “Are you happy?”

 

**\-----o0o-----**

When he wakes up, Misaki’s voice echoes in his ears:  _You’ll be okay, right? Promise me, dumbass_ .

He stares at the ceiling, remembers the whitewashed world filled with movie reels, and a Misaki he could never reach.

_You’ll live well, you hear that? Promise me_ .

What right does Misaki have, demanding things like that? Doesn’t Saruhiko have the right to choose to not be happy, without him? Didn’t Misaki do the same, almost seven years ago, when he dragged Saruhiko out of a meeting in Kyoto and kissed him in the train?

_I’ll come to you, I promise_ .

Fuck promises, Saruhiko decides, turns away from the ceiling, and curls into himself, burrowing under the blanket, ignoring the blares of the alarm and the blinding sunlight filtered by the curtains, caught by the three teru teru bouzu still hanging upside down.

** \-----o0o----- **

Halfway through the day, his cell phone starts ringing incessantly. By the twentieth time, Saruhiko hurls it across the room.

It hits the wall with a crash, but it doesn’t break. Saruhiko wishes it would.

** \-----o0o----- **

It’s five in the afternoon when he hears the bell rings. It’s Awashima, he knows, because it’s always Awashima who comes to check on him, who drags him out of his self-confinement,  _who finds him curling around Misaki’s cold body in bed, clinging with white knuckles and dry eyes and_ —

“Fushimi,” she calls out loud, after ringing the bell for the twenty-something-th time. “I’m coming in.”

Saruhiko doesn’t budge. Doesn’t flinch when his front door is busted open, doesn’t move when he hears Awashima’s heels making staccato noises on the wooden floor, doesn’t open his eyes when the door to his room swings open.

Fuck, he just wants to go back to sleep.

It’s silent for a long time, and then Anna’s voice breaks it: “Saruhiko.”

He twitches, something in Anna’s tone makes his chest clench. He doesn’t answer, though, lets the name swallowed by the pressing silence of the room, drowned by the grief thick in the darkness, tinting the hanging teru teru bouzu with black shadows.

“Saruhiko.” Again, and this time there are slender fingers tentatively grasping the blanket over his head—not pulling, just there. He hears the sound of a breath hitching, wonders if it’s his or someone else.

“I promised.”

Anna sounds like back when she’s small, newly rescued and placed in HOMRA, trying to find her place amidst the fear and confusion and strangers who should then be her family. She promised, she says, and Saruhiko wants to laugh because  _fuck you, Misaki_ .

“Please.”

He clicks his tongue, but doesn’t say anything else.

** \-----o0o----- **

He hates Misaki for leaving. He hates Misaki for coming back, only for one goddamn rainy season, and leaves him again, forever.

He remembers Munakata’s words—but the dead can’t come back—remembers the envy lining down the words, the way disbelief wars with hope, the exhausting grief perssing down on their shoulders.

_Maybe the dead shouldn’t come back_ , he thinks, staring at the cigarette stubs scattering around his bedroom floor,  _for good reasons_ .

- **\----o0o-----**

“I’m sorry,” Anna says quietly from where she sits on the table, her book clutched in her hands. Saruhiko passes her on his way to the kitchen, clicking his tongue as he opens the fridge, and tells her, “Go home.”

Anna looks up. “Will Saruhiko be okay?”

Saruhiko sneers. “Like I haven’t been okay, all this time.” The words taste bitter in his tongue—he knows that it’s a lie, and Anna could definitely see through that, too. Fucking psychic.

She doesn’t point out his lies, though. Doesn’t call him a liar, either. She just looks at him, with the same blank look that says she never judges anyone, and says, “Saruhiko should be okay.”

He doesn’t know if those words are premonition, or if they are simply a statement. He closes the fridge harder than he means to, the bottle of water in his hand shaking as his hand tightens around it.

“Fine, I’m going to work tomorrow.” He clicks his tongue, annoyed. “I’ll eat properly, take a bath, whatever. That’s what you promised him, right?”

Anna stares at him for a long time, then her eyes turn downcast, and with a pang, Saruhiko realizes that she actually looks sad.

“Those things,” she says, rising to her feet. “Doing them doesn’t mean Saruhiko is okay.”

** \-----o0o----- **

Misaki isn’t there, but all the movie reels are showing one particular memory: it’s the HOMRA bar, filled with not only the Red Clan, but also blue uniforms, looking slightly out of place in the rich, wine red interior that is Kusanagi’s treasure. Everyone’s drinking—a drunk Domyouji’s draped all over a tipsy Akiyama, Awashima is holding Bandou at the tip of her sword and lecturing him about sexual harassment, Munakata sitting properly on the bar stool next to Anna, who is sipping her soda and looking up curiously at Kusanagi, whose hands are rapidly moving to prepare more drinks.

He remembers this. It’s his 26 th birthday—Kusanagi had personally gone to see Awashima and invited the Blues to the party HOMRA is throwing, at Misaki’s insistence.There was a huge cake, decorated in red and blue and, apparently, layered with red bean paste, much to everyone’s dismay and Awashima’s satisfaction. The party was quickly reduced to a drinking game between the clans, one that Munakata wasn’t allowed to join, and one that nearly create an all-out war between the Reds and the Blues, if not for Kusanagi and Awashima’s timely intervention.

But what Saruhiko remembers, ultimately, isn’t the drunken party.

It was Misaki behind the camera, recording whatever it was that he thought was interesting, including Saruhiko’s furious flush when Munakata told him he’d bought two years worth of ‘provisions’for Saruhiko’s birthday. It was Misaki who grinned smugly at him, like Saruhiko should be so grateful that he actually arranged a party, like Saruhiko was so lucky to have a boyfriend like him. It was Misaki who finally settled down on the stool next to him, laughing as he surrendered his camera to Chitose and threatening to cut him down if he broke it, shoulders pressing against Saruhiko’s own, much like the old days Saruhiko used to hate.

“Where’s my present,” he’d said. Misaki shoved him sideways until he nearly stumbled off the stool, and when he righted himself and turned to glare at the shorter man, Misaki was averting his eyes.

Oh, he was also red. To the tips of his ears.

“Pay attention to your surroundings more, dumbass,” Misaki had groused, but there was no bite in his voice, not like the way he used to call Saruhiko ‘traitor’.

“If this party’s supposed to be your present this year, Mi-sa-kiii—“ he’d drawled, raising an eyebrow. “This is the lousiest thing you can come up wit—huh.”

Oh. Oh. He stared, unblinking, as Misaki glared up at him and—he was wearing a ribbon. A red ribbon, tied around his neck.

“Oh,” Saruhiko had said.

“Dumbass,” Misaki had accused back, but the last syllable of the insult was lost in a kiss.

** \-----o0o----- **

“Are you happy?” twenty-three year old Misaki asks from somewhere behind him, when the movie reel ends.

Saruhiko whirls around so fast he could feel something inside his head snap, but all he could catch is Misaki’s small smile before he disappears into the bright white of the space, and the movie reels start over.

** \-----o0o----- **

The first day he gets back to work, Munakata issues an order for a covert operation to capture the wish-granting Strain. They’re all going to infiltrate a popular themepark as visitors, which means most of them wouldn’t be able to bring their swords, while they look for a particular suspicious existence offering people to grant their wish.

“This time, we’ll be requesting help from the Red Clan,” Awashima says in the briefing, and really, it’s funny how no one corrects her for still calling the local delinquents residing in bar HOMRA  _‘Red Clan’_ . There’s no more clan in this world—the word had disappeared together with the powers of the Kings and the disassembled Dresden Slate years ago. Yet, the colors had been branded to their souls, turned into their identities, and became a part of them forever. “They’d be on stand by, should anything happen.”

Akiyama crosses his arms. “So this is why we’re assembling on a day off.”

Awashima eyes him. “There’s no day off when our cause is order and purity.” With that, she puts down her clipboard, and addresses the whole room. “You have ten minutes to be ready. Report back here for the dispatch. Dismissed.”

Saruhiko turns around, only to pause when Munakata calls out, “Fushimi-kun. 

He clicks his tongue. “What? 

There’s something in his Captain’s gaze when he studies Saruhiko; there is, of course, the usual interest, but there’s something more, this time. Something that makes Saruhiko feel like he’s just graduated from middle school all over again, despite his age. Like Munakata understands something Saruhiko doesn’t expect him to, and it’s unsettling.

“What’s impossible should stay impossible,” Munakata says. “This world has an order. It’s better to shoulder the pain than to disrupt the order.”

What the fuck, Saruhiko wants to say, but what comes out is, “Is everyone being purposefully cryptic on me?”

Munakata smiles.

“Only when it’s necessary, Fushimi-kun.”

** \-----o0o----- **

Anna is waiting for him at the entrance of the themepark, with Kusanagi standing a good meter away from her, vigilant as ever.

“What the fuck,” Saruhiko says, but Munakata passes him and pats his shoulder. “Captain, what the hell—“

“Please escort her around for today, Fushimi-kun.”

** \-----o0o----- **

Kusanagi and Awashima follow them from a good distance, pretending to be a normal married couple on a date, as unbelievable as that is. Awashima even has a ring on her finger.

“Saruhiko hasn’t been sleeping well,” Anna says, fingers clutching the side of Saruhiko’s casual shirt as she tries to keep up with his strides.

“Not your business,” Saruhiko half-snaps, because yes, he hasn’t been sleeping well and he’s exhausted, and he really didn’t expect that he’s going to spend the whole day escorting Anna around a themepark while keeping an eye out for any suspicious movements that would signal the presence of their Strain target.

Anna opens her mouth, seems to consider what she’s about to say, and continues, “Saruhiko isn’t okay.”

“You don’t get to judge me on that.” He grumbles, clicks his tongue and reaches in to his pocket pants for a cigarette. Anna watches him as he lights it up, watches as he inhales the poison and exhales the rest of the smoke out. He jams his cigarette and lighter back into his pocket, except the lighter falls down, and before Saruhiko could bend down to pick it, Anna crouches down and picks it up.

He stares at the girl’s impassive face. Anna offers her hand, the lighter safely clasped within her palm, staring at him back unblinkingly.

“I promised,” she says, repeating what she said the night Saruhiko closed himself off completely from the world. “Let me help. Saruhiko.”

Saruhiko clicks his tongue, and snatches the lighter away from her hand.

** \-----o0o----- **

“Let her help, dumbass,” nineteen-year-old Misaki is leaning against his skateboard under a movie reel, glaring at Saruhiko like he’s done the world the greatest injustice. “She promised.”

Saruhiko sneers at him--it’s the easiest way to deal with this Misaki, who’s still so attached to HOMRA, who still thinks of Saruhiko as a traitor, who hasn’t yet realized that he’s going to choose Saruhiko above everything. “I don’t need help. I’m fine.”

“Like fuck you are.” Misaki snarls.

“Are you mad that I’ve always been fine without you, Mi-sa-kiiii?” he drawls, leaning back against a movie reel depicting their first meeting back in middle school. How nostalgic. “Weren’t you the only one who always needed me? You even chose me in the end, because you couldn’t let go of your happiness, even if it meant you’d still be dead at the age of 29, was that it? That’s what you wrote in the diary, isn’t it, Mi-sa-kiii?”

The movie reel above Misaki shows their fight on the Ashinaka High School grounds, the day of Mikoto’s death. The Misaki who stands under said reel looks so identical to the one in the reel, and for a second Saruhiko wonders if the Misaki he’d been talking to are all projections of the movie reels anyway.

It doesn’t matter, he thinks. This is just a dream, in the end.

From his place under the movie reel, Misaki drops his skateboard and growls, “I told you not to call me that!”

Ah, this used to be familiar, back then.

Saruhiko braces himself as Misaki throws himself forwards with his skateboard, ready to attack; arms raised to balance himself on the skateboard as it lifts up, dangerously close to the side of Saruhiko’s head—and then.

And then it disappears, and so does Misaki.

“Idiot monkey,” his voices comes from behind, and Saruhiko feels Misaki’s forehead resting against his back, pressing hard, Misaki’s fingers clutching at the back of his shirt. “You gotta stop being so fucking angry at everything.”

He wants to turn around. He fucking wants to, just to see Misaki’s face, after all these time, but if he turned around Misaki would be gone, he would—

“I’m not,” he snaps instead, but it has no bite—it’s like he’s lost all his energy, lost all the fight in himself.  He can feel the question coming; it always does, Misaki never forgets to ask the question, and a part of him dreads it every time he hears it.

"Are you happy?” Misaki’s voice is quiet, as quiet as it was the day of his death. “Saruhiko.”

**\-----o0o-----**

“Saruhiko.”

He jerks forward, body going rigid for a moment, eyes snapping open to sound of his name, breath catching on his throat.

Anna stares at him. He stares back, mouth agape.

“You fell asleep,” she points out, and—yeah, they’re still at the themepark, what the fuck, did he just fall asleep on duty? Awashima is going to give him hell for this.

“Fuck,” he curses under his breath, tongue clicking as he rubs his eyes. Anna sits down next to him, holding out a can of iced coffee towards him—they’re on a bench next to an ice cream shop, with children running around and parents shouting in concern over their behaviors. He remembers Misaki, remembers the fingers clutching on the back of his shirt, and wonders why it all feels so real when it’s simply just a lucid dream.

He takes the can of iced coffee from Anna’s outstretched hand, and the girl comments, “I didn’t get stuck between vending machines anymore.”

Saruhiko stares at her. She stares back. He doesn’t know whether he should laugh or punch someone for that remark.

“Good,” is what he settles for in the end, opening the drink and gulping down half of it in one go.

** \-----o0o----- **

The rest of the day is completely, utterly uneventful.

He gets a text from Awashima, telling everyone to go back to the headquarters and regroup, saying that Munakata’s called the mission a failure. He clicks his tongue, turns to Anna, who’s still eating her crepe, and says, “We’re going back.”

She doesn’t seem to be bothered by the fact that nothing has happened the whole day. “Izumo will be waiting on the exit.”

“Fine,” Saruhiko says, and at that exact second, a young man looking far younger than himself stumbles and bumps into him, and his steps stutter. “What the hell—“

Someone’s drunk, his mind supplies, and he’s about to step sideways and leave the drunk to the mercy of gravity, but the young man grabs his shirt and hangs on, pulling him backwards, and Saruhiko—

_“What is your wish,” the young man murmurs, his words a breeze against Saruhiko’s ears, honeyed and oh-so-tempting, spelling out a heady rush of hope. “Fushimi Saruhiko-san?”_

—only has a second to take a sharp breath, before memories rush.

** \-----o0o----- **

_He’s an elementary school student, and his world is dull._

_“Saruhiko,” his Dad sing-songs, smiling behind a rubik cube. “Seems like your ant-hill is completely destroyed.”_

_He hates fire. He hates his Dad. He hates, hates, hates._

** \-----o0o----- **

_It’s May, and Misaki blazes into his world with a brilliant red, standing up for him against the third-year students._

_He hears the name ‘_ Yata Misaki’ _for the first time, and in the darkness of his room later that night, he tries to taste the syllables._

_They tumble easily off his tongue._

** \-----o0o----- **

_He nearly dies. Misaki cries. His Dad dies._

_He hates fire. He hates his Dad. He hates, hates, hates—but he still can’t hate his Dad._

** \-----o0o----- **

_HOMRA is made of fire. Saruhiko isn’t sure why he and Misaki join this small group of delinquents, but at least Misaki is grinning._

_That should be enough, for now._

_He still hates fire._

** \-----o0o----- **

" _Mi-sa-kiii,” he taunts, and Misaki roars, rushes forward with furious anger fueling his fire, and Saruhiko laughs, laughs, laughs at the beauty._

**\-----o0o-----**

_"You,” Misaki snarls, fingers yanking the lapels of Saruhiko’s SCEPTER 4 uniform down harshly, eyes narrowed and angry. “Are going to fucking listen to me for once, idiot monkey!”_

_“Make me,” Saruhiko sneers. Misaki punches him in the face, throws him against the wall, and kisses him hard._

**_\-----o0o-----_ **

_The Green King’s Sword of Damocles plummets down, and Saruhiko could only watch, from the other side of the river, how Kamamoto pushes Misaki down, how Misaki gapes and hollers his last orders, before the explosion swallows everything._

_Saruhiko hates fire. He hates Misaki, too—hates Misaki so much, wants Misaki to hate him, too, but still._

_Still, he can’t hate him._

** \-----o0o----- **

_“Yata-chan probably wouldn’t make it,” Kusanagi says to Awashima, and Saruhiko stops dead in his track._

_“Go to Kyoto, Fushimi,” Munakata says quietly. He obeys. There’s nothing left to lay his hope on here, anymore._

** \-----o0o----- **

_Misaki doesn’t die._

_Saruhiko’s dragged off from the meeting in Kyoto, halfway across the city and into a train back to Shizume City. His hands are shaking, his voice is trembling, but Misaki’s alive—_ Misaki’s alive _—and Misaki’s telling him that he’s going to move in with Saruhiko—_

_“What,” he says, jerking his hands backwards, but Misaki just laughs and silences him with a kiss._

** \-----o0o----- **

_He kicks Misaki’s shin and tells him, “Bring the boxes in, idiot.”_

_Misaki grins, shoves him sideways, and snaps his camera on Saruhiko’s scowl. What the fuck._

_Anna makes jasmine tea. He drops on the floor and tries to sleep, feels Misaki drape himself on top of him, and his arms move to wind themselves around Misaki’s waist. Mine, he thinks, takes a deep breath, fills his lungs with the scent of Misaki’s hair, and hears the sound of camera snapping._

_“This one’s taken by Kamamoto,” he catches Anna’s voice, and feels Misaki grin against his neck._

_Whatever, he’s good._

** \-----o0o----- **

_“Good morning, Mi-sa-kiiiiii….“_

_His glasses is slipping onto his face, Misaki’s fingers steady around his ears, settling the glasses properly, tucking stray bangs behind his ears, and Saruhiko’s day begins with Misaki’s grin._

_“Morning, you dumb fuck.”_

** \-----o0o----- **

_“I said, Anna told everyone that we’re basically a fucking married couple, and you’re asking me to go out with you?! Fuck you very much, Saruhiko.”_

_“…..do you want a ring?”_

_“Oh my god,” Misaki sounds like he’s about to kill someone. “You are so lucky I love you.”_

 

**\-----o0o-----**

_He wakes up to the white walls and curtains of the hospital, and this time, through the haze of painkillers and disconcerting sterile scents, he sees Misaki._

_“Hey,” he says hoarsely, throat parched. Misaki looks like he’s just seen a ghost—pale and scared and not grinning, but at least he’s not crying. “Misaki.”_

_“Dumbass,” Misaki says, hitting Saruhiko’s knee. He winces, and Misaki says, “Serves you right,” before bending down and kisses it better._

** \-----o0o----- **

_“I fucking love you, you know that, right.”_

_He nearly laughs._

_“See you soon, Mi-sa-kiiii….”_

** \-----o0o----- **

_It feels like Misaki is on fire, under the blanket._

_He kisses Misaki, again and again, until Misaki breathes in exhaustion against his lips, and says, “Saruhiko.”_

_He pauses._

“Stop forgetting to wash the rice before you cook it, dumbass.”

** \-----o0o----- **

_Misaki dies._

_The note says, ‘I’ll be back on the next rainy season.’_

** \-----o0o----- **

_He makes teru teru bouzu and hangs them upside down. Twenties of it. A hundred of it, and more._

_The rain hasn’t stopped. Misaki stays, yells at him, cooks him breakfast, welcomes him home, demands stories of the old days, stories of Kings and the clansmen, those who shape the history and those who worries over what happens with the history being shaped. Misaki doesn’t remember, but he laughs over the old videos they watch, leans against Saruhiko, and lets Saruhiko in, taking everything, everything, everything._

_But no matter how many teru teru bouzu he hangs upside down, the rain still gives way to the sun._

_Misaki disappears in his arms, taken away by the sun rays._

** \-----o0o----- **

_You’ll be okay, right?_

_Promise me, dumbass._

_You’ll live well, you hear that?_

_Promise me._

** \-----o0o----- **

Misaki is sitting atop one of the movie reels again, looking down at Saruhiko, the corners of his mouth turning downwards.

“Saruhiko—“ he begins, but Saruhiko finishes the question in his head.

_Are you happy?_

**\-----o0o-----**

His breath rushes out of him, and the young man pressing against his side laughs, low and dangerous.

“Should I bring him back?”

_Bring him back_ , Saruhiko thinks. _Bring him back to me, bring him back, I can’t—I need—_

“Let me have your memories. All of them.”

** \-----o0o----- **

The movie reels are fading.

It’s twenty-three-year-old Misaki now, stretching one hand out to Saruhiko, his mouth pressed into a firm line, and he calls out, “Saruhiko.”

Saruhiko still can’t see his face. He hates it.

“Come back,” he says, and something in his chest shatters completely.

“Goddammit, Saruhiko!” Misaki shouts, and he’s pleading, how irrational is that, that the dead begs to the living? “You’re kept forgetting about it!”

Saruhiko laughs, the bitter sound echoing into the white space, where the movie reels are slowly fading, washed with white like the world is being repainted.

“Forgetting what, Mi-sa-kiiii,” he drawls, drawing himself to his feet, standing straight. “ _Am I happy_ ?”

** \-----o0o----- **

“Saruhiko!”

Something in his head is screeching.

Something in his head is clashing.

Something pushes him away from the side, its whole weight throwing Saruhiko onto the ground and pins him there, and Saruhiko hears the swords being drawn, hears someone calling his name—

His name. Who’s—what’s his name…?

“Saruhiko.”

That’s his name.

“You’re okay.”

He isn’t.

Misaki isn’t here.

“Saruhiko.”

His head snaps up, eyes focusing on the figure of the white-haired girl on top of him, her elbows digging to his ribs, her gaze unblinking but determined, and Saruhiko thinks,  _Anna_ .

He isn’t prepared for the rush of fury taking over his entire being then.

“Fuck you,” he snarls, pushing her away, and she’s easily rolled sideways, hitting the paved ground of the themepark. Saruhiko hates that she doesn’t even flinch. “Fuck you, who gave you the right, I was getting him back—“

“You can’t,” Anna says, pulling herself up. “You can’t.”

“No, I can!” Saruhiko shouts, fists tight, fingers digging into palms. “I fucking can—if he could choose, and he fucking chose, the selfish bastard—then I can choose, and no one, no one is going to judge me for what I pay to bring him back!” He throws his head back and laughs, bitter and painful. “Memories, that’s all it takes, I can have him back, I can bring him back, fuck you, he chose me over his own life, didn’t even think how I’d feel about him dying, did he?! I don’t need—“

“No,” Anna shakes her head. “Saruhiko doesn’t need Misaki back.”

Saruhiko reaches out, curls his fingers around the lapels of her dress, and yanks her forward. “You don’t know,” he grits out. “You don’t know what it’s like, don’t you give me that, fuck—“

“Saruhiko needs to let Misaki go.”

“Like hell I am,” he spits, and the corners of Anna’s mouth twitches up.

“Thank you,” she says, the words earnest even if her face stays impassive. “For letting out your anger.”

Saruhiko freezes. He remembers Misaki’s words, _you gotta stop being angry at everything_ , and as fast as his fury had taken over him, it disappears.

His hands are shaking. He lets go of Anna, feels his heart pounding a mile a minute, still pumped up full of adrenaline from the rush of anger, and he sucks in a breath, feeling lost.

Anna takes his hands and holds them loosely.

“Saruhiko is not okay,” she says. Saruhiko stares at her, at the impassive look on her eyes, at the determined set of her mouth, at the slightly narrowed eyebrows.

He thinks of Misaki, of the movie reels in the whitewashed world, of the apartment filled with traces of Misaki’s existence.

“I’m not,” he finally says, eyes prickling as he closes them and drops bonelessly to the ground. Anna doesn’t let go of his hands, keeping them in her hold as they shake harder.

“I’m not,” he repeats, and chokes out a sob.

** \-----o0o----- **

The Strain is captured, held against the tip of Awashima’s sword. Saruhiko looks on as Akiyama and Enomoto escort him into the Blues’ trailer, and wrenches his gaze away when he realizes Munakata is watching him.

“The impossible wish should stay impossible,” Munakata murmurs. “For it is the order, and our cause is pure.”

** \-----o0o----- **

Saruhiko goes to sleep that night, and wakes up to the now-familiar whitewashed world filled with movie reels, with a familiar weight pressing against his back.

“You,” Misaki’s voice is exasperated, but fond. “Are the dumbest person, Saruhiko, fuck.”

“Not your business,” Saruhiko counters. “You’re dead.”

Misaki chuckles. “Yeah. Yeah, I am.”

Saruhiko moves his hand backwards, until his fingers bump against Misaki's. “Can I,” he says, feeling the thick pain crawling up his throat. “Turn around?”

“Man, you should’ve turned around since the first time you got here and I stood behind you.” The words is laced with laughter, now. Saruhiko turns, and Misaki looks up at him, grinning, eyes bright and brilliant and god, the sun can’t even compare. “See, this is why I said you’re the dumbest person in the world.”

Saruhiko drinks that expression in—Misaki’s grin, Misaki’s gaze, the lines on Misaki’s face. “I thought,” he begins, but his voice catches in his throat. “I thought you’d disappear.”

The grin turns into a small smile. “What, you want me to?”

“No,” Saruhiko reaches out, grabs a handful of Misaki’s shirt and hangs on almost desperately. “No, never.”

Misaki looks sad. “I have to, though, Saru.”

“You don’t.” Saruhiko says. “You don’t, you don’t ever need to—you can stay. Choose me. Choose me again, Misaki.” And god, he can’t stand the helpless look on Misaki’s face, he can’t.

Misaki looks down, takes Saruhiko’s hands and laces their fingers together, his smile sad. “I don’t have the choice, Saru.” He looks up, and forces a grin. “You don’t, either.”

“Why,”  Saruhiko blurts out. “Why, I don’t understand, Misaki—“

It’s the tiny shake of Misaki’s head that stills Saruhiko’s tongue, but it’s Misaki’s words that clears everything up: “It’s never been your choice to begin with, Saru.”

He hates this world.

“That’s,” he struggles to find a word—to protest, to get angry, to curse. “That’s so unfair,” he finishes lamely.

Misaki laughs. “That’s how the world is. All you can do is making the most out of it.” He peers up, catching Saruhiko’s eyes. “I already did.”

“I hate you,” Saruhiko tells him. “You shouldn’t have chosen me.”

“That’s what you kept forgetting.” Misaki draws back with a confident grin. “Told you, didn’t I? I was happy. With you. I’ve been really, really happy, Saru. I’d do it a thousand times over, sorry.” Then he pauses, hesitates a little, before squeezing Saruhiko’s hands tight. “Hey, Saru—“

Saruhiko knows the question. He knows, and he waits for it, this time.

“—are you happy?”

He stares at Misaki, the twenty-nine-year-old Misaki, who’d died in his arms, who’d chided him about washing rice before he died, who’d let Saruhiko stole his last breaths in kisses.

“I’m not,” he answers. Misaki’s smile grows.

“It sucks, but will you try?“

Saruhiko leans down, presses their foreheads together, and says, “Yeah.”

Misaki beams. “Could’ve spared me the trouble all these time, dumbass.”

“Shut up,” Saruhiko says, and leans down to steal the laughter out of Misaki’s lips.

 

**\-----o0o-----**

_I should beat you up, for forgetting about that, too._

_Forgetting what, exactly?_

_That I fucking love you, idiot monkey._

_I didn’t forget. Never did._

One last kiss. One last touch.

_I love you, too. Misaki._

** \-----o0o----- **

He wakes up, and Misaki isn’t there.

He spends a solid ten minutes staring blankly at the ceiling, eyes tracing the old cracks chasing one another on the plaster, following them down to the walls, to the opened curtains and the shy rays of the sunrise. He’d forgotten to close the windows, again.

The teru teru bouzu are still hanging upside down on the windows. Saruhiko drags himself up, watches them sway in the morning breeze; little miracles that would always be a part of his life. His sword is leaning on the windowsill—he should polish that, today, and maybe try cooking breakfast again. There’s still the paperwork no doubt waiting for him in the headquarters, and Awashima’s probably going to chew him for pulling that stunt yesterday, but he’ll face that, too.

It’s not like it’s going to kill him.

His phone buzzes, and he takes a moment to look at the sender of the mail—Anna, of course it’s Anna, what a stubborn kid—before opening the message.

_I’m off to school_ , it says.

The corner of his mouth twitches upward, and he clicks his tongue as he replies.

_Still not your brother._

He throws his phone back to his bed, wonders if he should skip and visits Misaki’s grave, today. He hasn’t been there for a long time—he should probably bring flowers, that’d make Misaki angry, being given ‘girly’ things. Roses, or lilies, maybe, just so he could smirk at the tombstone and challenges Misaki to figure out what they mean.

He raises one hand and flicks one of the teru teru bouzu hanging upside down, a smile tugging on his lips.

“Morning, Misaki.”

**\-----o0o-----**


End file.
